Educational Lender Credila Financial Files Draft Papers For Rs 5,000-Crore IPO

India's largest private student loan provider, Credila Financial Services Ltd., has filed its preliminary papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, to raise funds via an initial public offering. The public offer will include mix of fresh issues of shares worth Rs 3,000 crore and an offer-for-sale of Rs 2,000 crore, taking the IPO value to Rs 5,000 crore.

The equity shares are proposed to be listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and BSE Ltd. The company, in consultation with the BRLMS, may consider an issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs 600 crore as pre-IPO placement. If the pre-IPO placement is completed, the amount raised under it will be reduced from the fresh issue.

Kopvoorn B.V. is the promoters of the company offloading shares worth Rs 950 crore in the offer for sale, along with HDFC Bank, which will offload shares worth Rs 1,050 crore.

Axis Capital Ltd., Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt., Goldman Sachs (India) Securities Pvt., IIFL Capital Ltd. and Jefferies India Pvt. are the book-running lead managers for the issue. KFin Technologies Ltd. will be the registrar of the issue.

The company plans to use the proceeds to augment its capital base and meet its future capital requirements arising out of its business and assets, it said in the DRHP.

Credila will use a portion of the proceeds towards meeting offer expenses. A part of the net proceeds may be utilised towards onward lending, improve CRAR, and enable the company to leverage more through onward lending, from financial year 2026 onwards, it said.

Formally known as HDFC Credila Financial Services, the lender was bought by a private equity consortium of BPEA EQT and ChrysCapital. In June 2023, HDFC Ltd., HDFC Bank and HDFC Credila announced that they entered into definitive agreements to sell a majority stake in HDFC Credila to the private equity consortium for Rs 9,060 crore.

The consortium of EQT and ChrysCapital holds a 90.01% stake in the private lender. As on March 31, 2024, EQT holds 72.01%, ChrysCapital Group holds 18.00% and HDFC Bank Ltd. holds 9.99% shareholding in the company

The change of control was made on RBI's direction to HDFC Bank to reduce its shareholding to less than 10% post the merger of Housing Development Finance Corp. with HDFC Bank.

Credila Financial Services is a Reserve Bank of India-registered non-banking financial company engaging in the business of providing retail education loans.

In financial year 2025, the NBFC posted a net profit of Rs 989.96 crore and a 47.67% growth in net loans at Rs 41,469.31 crore. Credila also reported the highest disbursement of Rs 14,089.22 crore in financial year 2024.

It also has the lowest cost-to-income ratio among education-focused NBFCs in India of 19.65% and 27.10% for the fiscal 2025 and 2024, respectively.